He couldn’t put a name on what he was feeling—nothing like this had ever happened to him before—but he couldn’t ignore it, either.
In a flash, he was running back to the compound. He raced past people trying to get his attention and when he found his way to their shared hallway, he heard it.
Struggling. Melody’s muffled cries.
He smelled her fear, too.
His muscles reacted before his brain had time to put a plan together. Rounding the corner and gripping the frame to propel him faster, he took in the scene quickly.
He saw Melody, her face mottled red as she hovered a foot or two above the ground, her feet dangling and her back pressed against the wall. A large hand was wrapped around her throat, constricting her airway. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and it looked like she was starting to go limp.
With a roar, Aksel had the assailant by the back of the head and ripped him off of Melody, who slumped to the floor, gasping for breath.
The man with his hands around her neck was large, nearly Aksel’s size. But he didn’t have Aksel’s strength. And he certainly didn’t have Aksel’s rage.
The fight was bloody and ruthless and the man hardly touched the vampire. Aksel mirrored the assailant’s attack by grabbing him by his own throat and throwing him out the door into the hallway. The man, tall with dark hair and an olive complexion—a local likely—understood it was a losing battle and changed tactics. Instead of offensive, he went for the coward route and tried to run down the hallway.
Aksel was too fast for him and tackled him just a few feet away. Security arrived then, and it took three grown men to pull Aksel off of the badly beaten attacker. When he’d finally been brought down from his battle rage, he gave the team a quick rundown of what had happened and told them to lock the man up in a cell downstairs. He’d brief Kai quickly and deal with the man himself when he’d calmed down.
As soon as the team had their orders and had the attacker in custody, Aksel turned and ran to Melody’s room. She was on her feet now, leaning against the wall and struggling to breathe normally.
Aksel let out a small sigh of relief when he saw that her coloring had returned to normal.
“Are you okay?” He asked, grabbing her elbow in his hand and pulling her around so that she faced him. With his other hand, he gently grasped her chin and turned her face toward the ceiling so that he could examine her neck. He sucked in a breath when he saw the angry red marks.
“Your neck will bruise,” he said simply. He wasn’t great at offering comfort—especially not to women.
Melody only nodded in response and pulled gently out of his grasp. Aksel frowned. He didn’t like that she withdrew from him. It didn’t feel natural.
Fighting off his own instincts, he began questioning her instead.
“I was asleep,” she explained. “I heard the door open and I assumed it was Ember. The next thing I knew, the guy had pulled me out of bed and had his hands around my throat. I fought him, but it didn’t help much, obviously.”
Brave girl, Aksel thought. Instead, he asked Melody if she recognized the man.
She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen him before,” she replied. “But whoever he was, he had a key to my room.”
The annoyance building in Aksel’s chest turned to ice at that. One thing was suddenly clear— they had a betrayer among them.
Chapter Seven
Yes, Aksel’s new fiancée was perfect in all the ways that counted, but Melody picked up something else from her, too, that she couldn’t quite place.
There was a hardness to Thala that all but disappeared when Aksel walked into the room. A glint in her eye or a harshness to her words that simply dissipated whenever Melody watched Aksel walk into earshot.
They weren’t speaking English, so naturally the Scandinavians must have assumed that Melody wasn’t paying attention.
But she was.
“How long do you plan on staying on the island?”
The question wasn’t exactly rude per se, but the tone Thala delivered it in was unfriendly. They were in one of the main gathering areas in the center of the compound. It overflowed with comfortable, overstuffed leather couches and fireplaces around every corner. Melody had hooked her computer into an outlet and had all but taken over one of the large mahogany tables in the corner with her gear and her notepad.
She looked up and blinked at the glamazon.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly before recovering. “What about you?”
Thala took the seat opposite from Melody uninvited and set her elbows on the shiny surface. She leveled a gaze at Melody that probably would have melted the average mortal.
"I'll be blunt since you seem the coarse kind of woman who appreciates things straight-to-the-point," Thala said as her voice dropped an octave. Here it was—that shift from damsel to a predator that Melody had noticed over the past few days. Melody also caught a glimpse of Bjorn leaning against the wall a few yards away, listening attentively as his sister spoke.
Thala paused and looked at Melody.
Melody raised an eyebrow.
“You were saying you had something to be blunt about?”
Thala cast a glance over her shoulder at Bjorn, who quickly looked around before nodding. Melody’s pulse quickened and her senses heightened. She suddenly realized she was in the far corner of this room alone and there wasn’t anybody else left. It was just her and the Psycho Siblings.
“I don’t know what is happening or has happened between you and Aksel in the past. And I don’t care,” she said, the tone in her voice sharpening while the volume of it dropping to a hiss. “But it’s over. Stop trying to divert his attention to you with your little looks and this little helpless act you’ve got going on. I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work. He’s marrying me. Do you understand? Back off or I’ll make you very, very sorry.”
Melody took a second to gather her thoughts.
“Do you feel threatened by me, Thala?” It was a bold question to ask an obviously jealous centuries-old vampire, but Melody was honestly curious.
Thala barked out a harsh laugh.
“By the likes of a Plain Jane like you? Never,” she turned and shared a look with her brother. He smiled and shook his head. “But Aksel seems to feel the need to protect you and I’m telling you that either you stop with the act or you’re going to really need protecting.”
“Oh,” Melody breathed out slowly. “So you’re threatening me?”
Ever the two-faced snake Melody had her pegged for, Thala’s eyes darted around the empty room to check for eavesdroppers.
“Yes,” she said when she was certain nobody could hear. “I am. Leave Aksel alone or I will break you.”
Melody didn’t like the pleasure Thala seemed to get from her threat. It wasn’t really a game she should be playing, either, since it wasn’t one she could win.
Without responding to Thala, Melody simply gathered her gear and left the common area, teeth clenched and heart racing.
At times like this, Melody almost wished she had her Terzi abilities. What Thala needed right now more than anything was an immortal-sized bitch slap to the face.
Nobody had officially blamed Melody’ attack on the terrorist organization, but she had heard enough whispers around the compound. Three days after the attack, she still had the giant purple and yellow handprints around her neck. And her sister still teared up every time she saw her. And her brother-in-law still set to swearing in a torrent of words she couldn’t understand when his wife got worked up. And, of course, the giant lug of a Viking still scowled at her every time she entered a room.
This was getting old. Now add to the fact that his Glamazon wife-to-be was showing up more and more randomly in places that should be safe zones—like the compound’s library or computer lab, and Melody was near a breaking point.
Sure, she wasn’t exactly scared of Thala, but she wasn’t immortal, either. Jealous bitch or not, Tha
la had strengths and abilities that Melody simply didn’t. And Melody had an extra something special to protect these days, too. Instinctively, her hands went to her abdomen.
To make the whole thing worse, Aksel was absolutely everywhere she was, no matter how much she tried to avoid him. He seemed to know where she’d turn up even before she made the decision to be there and with his bitch-face fiancée two feet behind him, things were getting awkward. One morning she set out to find him and caught him as he came out of the Kai and Ember’s wing.
“Listen, you’re driving me crazy,” she said as she put her hands up in front of her. “I’m not trying to cause trouble and I’m really appreciative of all of your extra effort since the attack, but it’s obviously causing problems for you and your cult of Rivendale elves. So, seriously, thank you. But I’m good now.”
Aksel didn’t react as quickly as she thought he would. He expected a terse nod or a sarcastic word and then he’d be done with it. But here he stood, looking like he was struggling to come up with a response. He was saved from too much effort by a commotion deeper in the compound.
“We’ll pick this up in a minute,” he all but promised Melody as he took off toward the noise. Ever the nosy girl, Melody followed him into the larger common rooms.
A small group of people were being ushered in by Kai's security team and Ember smelled smoke and fuel instantly—pregnant super-smelling powers had to be good for something, right? Two people, men, were bloodied and their clothes torn and wet. The real chaos, and the absolute sinking feeling in her chest, began when Thala was carried into the room by the giant they had called Bjorn. Apparently, they were brother and sister.
Bjorn spoke.
"They were traveling to the mainland by one of the smaller boats when they were attacked. One man was killed and these three survived."
He motioned to the two injured man and Thala.
From the left, Aksel and Kai ran into the room and took control of the situation. Men were sent to pursue the attacking boat. Men were sent to grab the island’s medic. And Aksel knelt beside Thala and suddenly she had everything she wanted from the start. He had his hand on her shoulder and checked her for injuries in the same, gentle way that he had with her days earlier. Fucker.
Melody shook her head, trying to get the horrible thought from her head. The woman had just survived an exploding boat. She didn’t deserve the bear the brunt of Melody’s jealousy, too. And if she was being totally honest with herself, Thala and Aksel were engaged. So there was that, too.
The tears in Thala’s voice floated across the room toward Melody and when Aksel responded with hushed tenderness, it was like an icy knife to the stomach.
She needed to leave. It was clear.
In the end, Ember figured out Melody's little secret before anyone else. She'd stopped by in the morning a week later and caught Melody in a pair of running shorts and a tight tank top. The burgeoning little belly impossible to disguise without heavy, flowing clothes.
Her big sister had squealed. She’d yelled. Then she squealed again.
And then Ember did something that nearly knocked Melody off her feet.
“It’s Aksel’s baby, isn’t it?”
Dumbfounded, Melody couldn’t come up with an answer fast enough—essentially answering Ember’s question. How did she know?
"Well, we knew about back in Devil's Folly," Ember explained. "And it sort of makes sense now—all these crushed puppy faces you make when he's around. And Thala—"
Ember broke off at the woman’s name and looked at her sister.
“Oh, honey,” she said, walking over to embrace Melody. “I’m so sorry.”
Melody tried to shrug it off nonchalantly.
“It’s okay,” she said, numbly. Melody was truly feeling the brunt of her situation now that her secret was out. It sure didn’t feel okay.
“What do you want to do?” Ember asked as she let her sister go.
Melody was going to leave. It was just a matter of time. But she wasn’t going to tell her sister yet.
“I’ve been busy working on the cyber security for Kai’s network, and I have a little work left to do with that for now. He’s got gaping holes in his security, so I can fix those for now,” she said.
“And after that?” Ember prodded.
“After that? I’m hoping some sort of new situation opens for me somewhere,” she said with a shrug. “I have no idea, Em. But I’ve always been good at figuring out what’s next when it’s time.”
Ember gave her little sister a sad smile.
“And Aksel? He deserves to know.”
Maybe. But it would also add kerosene to an already complicated fire.
“I don’t want him to know right now,” Melody said, pleading with her sister not to let her secret out just yet. “I’ve got a couple weeks left that I can hide it and he has so much to deal with right now with his new fiancée. Please don’t say anything yet. Please, just trust me.”
Ember worried her lower lip between her teeth but finally agreed.
“And you can’t tell Kai,” Melody added. It took her sister a moment to finally agree, but she did.
After breakfast later that morning, Ember and Melody parted ways for the day. Ember with Kai to more meetings and tactical planning and Melody back to the mainframe where she sat next to Kai’s IT engineer and tortured him through an hour of repetitive, redundant questions.
A thought had permeated her mind recently. A hunch about the recent New Dawn attacks and how they’d been anything but random. Melody hooked her laptop into the mainframe and set to work, explaining to the engineer every step she was taking.
"You're hacking?" He said at last when it dawned on him.
“Reverse hacking, actually, Jack,” Melody said and explained the tricks she’d picked up when she’d gone for her computer science degree, months after failing out of culinary school. She’d never exactly finished that degree either, but nearly two years with those guys had shown her a million cool ways to mess with a corporation’s firewalls.
It was quiet by the time Melody finished in the lab. Using the security cameras they kept up over Jack’s desk, she knew exactly where Thala and Bjorn were.
Sneaking through the compound to the visitor wing, Melody used one of Ember’s key cards and let herself into Thala’s room.
It didn’t take her long to get her phone attached to the apparatus and attach the wires to Thala’s laptop. She held her breath for most of the three minutes it took her phone to steal all of Thala’s files and make copies of them and she didn’t breathe normally until she was far away from the visitor’s side of the compound. That she’d been able to move undetected like that was nothing short of a miracle. Then again, Melody was pretty good at blending in.
She carried her laptop under her arm and walked through the center of the compound.
There was a group of vampires sitting among the sofas, speaking an ancient language that she didn’t understand. But she didn’t need to be fluent in hatred to read the looks on their faces. She heard Aksel’s name in there, too, and her heart sank.
Walking through the kitchens, she saw the human staff members preparing to leave for the night and got a flash of brilliance.
She had more than enough money to disappear again and this looked like her chance to escape unnoticed.
Chapter Eight
He felt the twinge in his chest as he sat in Bjorn’s rooms, taking the verbal berating from his old friend and the man who was a father to him.
“Enough with this human,” Hegel spat. They refused to say Melody’s name, as though even that was beneath them. Aksel’s blood was at a slow boil. “Your duties are with us. With Thala. It was what your mother wanted and it is what I’ve always wanted. Do not throw away your clan’s safety and future over some piece of ass that’s caught your attention. This is not the Aksel, the alpha, that I know.”
The word stung. Aksel had been born an alpha in the middle of a vampire civil war in the north. His mo
ther was their rule and united with Hegel’s army. Eventually, Aksel would return to the north, marry Thala to unite the houses, and rule in his mother’s stead.
“I know who I am and what I’ve been through to get here today,” he bit out, probably a little more bitterly than he meant to.
That had been the plan. What had really happened was Aksel found he couldn’t stand his mother. Or most of the vampires in the north, Hegel and his family withstanding. He left and met a young Malakai Arkos and fought alongside him through the Order’s many wars and was comfortable in the Isles. Some afternoons when he was alone and away from the constant bickering, he dreamed about a life where he was free to love who he wanted and to live how he wanted. To have a life with someone like Melody.
And now, centuries later, his past had caught up with him.
“She is an ant,” Bjorn said. “A nothing.”
Aksel squashed the instant desire to put his fist through Bjorn’s face for saying such a thing. Something deep inside him roared to life at the insult of Melody.
And besides, that wasn’t true. But Aksel didn’t feel like enlightening them on her Terzi legacy.
That was her own story and so far, Melody hadn’t exactly embraced her vampire side. Let others think she was a weak-willed human if they liked. He’d made that mistake once and nearly gotten his balls kneed through the top of his head.
“Our families made a promise, Aksel,” Thala spoke now. “We owe it to our brethren to strengthen the north with two powerful dynasties. The northern families would have a chance to take more power from the Order…”
Aksel eyed Thala at that last part. Take more power from the Order? Just what was she talking about?
Hegel spoke over Thala, stopping her.
“Our people deserved to be recognized, Aksel,” he said, more gently this time. “It was your mother’s greatest wish that you would lead us to our birthright. To a place of power and strength. Do not waste it on lustful urges with a nobody.”
Bjorn grunted in agreement. It seemed all he was good for.
The Vampire´s Secret Baby Page 3
